On the morning of March 11, Supreme Court President Xiao Yang and
Chief Procurator Han Zhubin made reports on the work of the Supreme
People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate in 2001
respectively to the annual session of the National People's
Congress, China's top legislature, which was held March 5-15. The
work reports summarized the achievements made by the Supreme Court
and Supreme Procuratorate in the previous year as well as remaining
problems. That very afternoon, these two reports aroused heated
panel discussions among members of the ninth National Committee of
the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also in
session on March 3-13 to exercise democratic supervision through
proposals and criticisms.
All in all, the work reports by the Supreme Court and Supreme
Procuratorate were satisfying, said Yu Zupeng from the Chinese
Peasants and Workers Democratic Party. "This year's reports reflect
exactly the current situation of the procuratorial and judicial
work. Over the past year, the procuratorial and judicial
organizations made great achievements in terms of improving their
working style and efficiency of handling cases. During the campaign
to crack down on crime and strengthen public safety launched last
year, the procuratorial and judicial organizations meted out prompt
and severe punishment in accordance with the law to those who
committed serious crimes. In addition, the procuratorial and
judicial organizations beefed up the combat against corruption and
degeneration and scored outstanding successes in anti-corruption.
All the above attainments ensured China's reform and development,
and greatly bettered people's impressions on procurators and
judicial officials."
On
the other hand, Yu Zupeng pointed out that in terms of judicial
impartiality and administration of the country by law, the
procuratorial and judicial organizations still could not meet the
new requirements brought in by China's entry into the World Trade
Organization. The reports by the Supreme Court and Supreme
Procuratorate admit undesirable phenomena harbored inside the
judiciary system including the low quality of some policemen at the
grassroots who occasionally commit unlawful acts, extort
confessions by torture, and impose fines at random. Associating
with criminals, some policemen tipped off suspects and shared with
them information on procurators and on judicial officials' actions.
Also, other long-standing problems such as the issue of difficult
implementations of decisions still call for immediate solution.
While expressing their satisfaction, most members of the CPPCC
National Committee pointed out problems still remaining both in the
reports and in the actual procuratorial and judicial work, and they
expressed hope that the Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate
would attain yet better results in the future.
Also mentioned in the reports: "Some judges fell easy-prey to
influence, deciding cases contrary to the law, discipline, and
their own conscience; in some courts barriers to the enforcement of
judgments in civil cases has not been alleviated yet." Yang
Zhenjiang, another member from the Chinese Peasants and Workers
Democratic Party, pointed out that there were a lot of factors
hindering courts and procuratorates from handling cases. However,
no case or person has been exposed by either through procuratorial
and judicial organizations or through the media. Exposing these
cases is necessary to warn those who interfere with the law and to
prevent those powerful people who use personal connections with
procurators and judicial officials to disturb judicial
investigation. For instance, in the recent case of the ex-director
of a provincial tax bureau who bought his title, the person who
sold him the post was not held accountable at all. In Yang's
opinion, compared with those who bought public posts, those who
sold posts should be the more severely punished.
In
addition, Yang offered a three-point proposal concerning the
court's future work.
- A vertical system needs to be established in courts and
procuratorates, otherwise courts and procuratorates cannot truly
perform their supervisory function over government agencies.
- The current situation in the public security sector needs to be
improved. People have a lot of complaints about the public safety
sector, such as poor quality of the police as well as the phenomena
that the public security agencies have already become a sanctuary
for some children of police who did not get admitted to
college.
- In regards to military personnel transferred to procuratorial
and judicial work, according to Yang, proper arrangements should be
made for these ex-servicemen based on their personal abilities.
Assigning demobilized soldiers who are not qualified to courts and
procuratorates at random will adversely affect the procuratorial
and judicial work, especially when they are put into a position of
leadership.
Zhang Yu from the China Democratic League said that according to
the reports by the Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate, over
the previous year 40,195 embezzlers and bribe-takers were put on
file for investigation, which shows that the investigation and
punishment on degenerates have been enhanced.
"Nonetheless, only 539 bribers were investigated and punished.
Generally speaking, those who bribe and those who take bribes are
closely related to each other. It is not possible for a bribe-taker
to take only one person's bribe. If so, compared with bribe-takers,
more bribers should be punished. Then how to explain the great
difference between the number of bribees and of bribers who were
already sentenced? Is the blow at bribery not heavy enough? Why not
beef up the fight against bribery? All bribers try to corrupt
governmental officials for their personal gain at the expense of
national interest. Thus, bribe-giving is a crime greater than
bribe-taking. Unfortunately, the present punishment on bribers is
too light. Bribers should be investigated and punished in each
case. Only dealing with both bribe-taking and bribe-giving can
strike at the root of corruption."
Lei Hengshan, also from the China Democratic League, noticed the
difference in some figures between the two reports. For instance,
the Supreme Court's report states: "The courts of the whole country
concluded the investigation of 21,098 appeals against initial
sentences submitted by procuratorial agencies, of which 4,697
cases' judgments were amended according to law since the causes of
litigation were tenable, 7,440 cases' original verdicts were
affirmed, 1,055 appeals were withdrawn by procuratorial
organizations, 1,538 cases were sent back for retrial due to new
evidence or unclear facts in original judgments, and 6,368 cases
were settled out of court by both litigants voluntarily."
But according to the report by the Supreme Procuratorate:
"Procuratorial agencies submitted 16,488 appeals in accordance with
the law in 2001 and the courts concluded the investigation of
10,145 appealing cases, of which 5,377 cases' initial verdicts were
amended, and 900 cases were sent back for retrial after the
cancellation of original judgments."
Taking into account leftover cases in 2000, the discrepancy between
the above two sets of figures is still very great, said Lei.
Han Dajian from the China Democratic League pinpointed the frequent
references to the increase of crime rate "year by year" in the
reports. "On the one hand, we must admit that the public safety
agencies have increased investment and made progress in terms of
maintaining public order. On the other hand, we need to ask the
question why the number of criminal cases keeps on increasing under
the circumstance of intensified public security." She believes that
insufficient prevention is the main cause of the paradox.
(By Zhang Yan, china.org.cn staff reporter, translated by Shao Da,
March 25, 2002)